There has been a great demand for translucent building materials with decorative images, textures and colors. Traditionally these materials have been made by mixing colors in the base resin material limiting the options to only large runs thus eliminating the possibility of customizing colors for each project.
Laminate structures are composites made from any one of several types of thermosetting plastic materials and may contain a printed pattern or an image. However, to date, the production of such laminated structures has often required complex processing techniques, added production time, and/or additional capital. In addition, these laminate structures could not be easily thermoformed and were typically rigid and brittle. Also, certain laminate materials which offer the prospect of providing improved properties in decorative laminate structures often do not readily adhere to adjacent layers, which then resulted in non-uniform lamination or delamination after a period of use.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,894,048, 5,643,666, 5,998,028, 5,958,539, 6,025,069 and PCT Application No. WO 97/22474 disclose a decorate laminate structure which uses polyethylene teraphtalate glycol polyester (PETG polyester).